Friday, November 17, 2006

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah as i have said before 1993 was a great year for hip hop!

Here come the lords was the debut album from Lords of the underground. A crew from Newark who caused a major buzz on the scene with the singles "psycho" then "Check it"

The album came out shortly after and in now way did it let down expectant fans.

This was a solid debut and had soem extremely catchy beats and some well thought out lyrics to boot! not surprisingly they hammered the album to death and released 6 singles...yes 6? (thats where moby got his ideas from)

A tad bit of a rip off too for fans (or muggs) as the singles were pretty lame value for money too! dont get me wrong...they were all great tracks but you expect a remix if you gonna get into collecting records? while a lot of the singles claim to have remixes on them they werent actually that different from the originals except for the "flow on" single which was blessed with a fairly lazy Pete Rock remix.....now pete rock is a laid back chap but this remix was zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz (definately not his best effort!)

but without the singles i suppose the Lords would not have hade their hip hop anthems bashed to bits in the clubs as much...and that just about sums the lords up. Some great cuts on this album and probably everyone in hip hop has nodded their head to "chief rocka" at least 80,000 times!

So if you are one of the odd few hip hop heads that dont got this album do yourself a favour and get it. you forget how good this album is then 10 years later you find yourself in your front room miming to the whole of psycho while your turntables tremble like a bitch!

So after all the controversy surrounding Ice T/body counts "cop killer" track.

Along came the rapper paris with his secon album "sleeping with the enemy" with the even more controversial "bush killa".

If you think George Bush jnr is a hated man right now you have no idea about how much Paris hated Bush senior!!!

But ignore the track itself! This album is a fuckin 5* classic in my view. This album has just about everything you want....Great beats (some supplied by a very young DJ Shadow by the way) lyrics that pull you into a world that paris Needs to get out of him! some scratching that you will not believe??? this is defiantely a timeless record and the fact it was allowed to be released at all is a miracle....well not really?

After the fact that no one would touch it with a 2,000,000 mile barge pole Paris just released it by himself! no mean feat back in the day!

Anyone at all interested in political hip hop should check out this and paris's other albums, i myself wont be after i bought the follow up album i kinda got the impression Paris was losing the plot a bit (my opinion and i'm entitled to it)

The 3rd album

I am very sad to say was a terrible follow up to what i thought was a start of something big in hip hop... ,no doubt the man is still doing his thing today and power to him, but for me this album just fell off so much it was ridiculous!

Released at the time of the Dre induced G funk era paris broke away from his gritty hard hitting beats and tried to use the same g funk format but someone forgot to tell him that his gritty rhymes didnt quite go well???

Shame.....

But no doubt anyone with a serious head nod infection and a need to punch george bush needs his "sleeping with the enemy" album! just get it!

While i may think the man has slightly lost the plot? he is still doing his thing and his website is a very interesting read. Covers a lot of social issues and problems that communitys in america is still struggling with. It also has some "interesting" views on recent events such as 9/11 but i not going into that fuckin can of worms. but feel free to check out Paris's work and that includes Sleeping with the enemy!

For those that listened to west coast gangsta rap in the earlt 90's there is a big possibility you heard Threat rhyme on someones track?

The fact that i chose him to be my first unsung hero is down to the fact that i can hardly find a thing about the dude on the net anywhere??? its not surprising but at the same time its a shame as this was a solid as hell album...okay it was exactly like all other west coast album out there.....guns, bitches and low riders? But how this album never shipped major units is beyond me?

Threat was sort of an un-official member ife Ice cubes lench mob andguest rapped on some all time west coast hip hop classics. None better than Ice Cubes "color blind" which featured a who's who of west coast rappers on the album "death certifidate"

He had a good voice and his rhymes were very well thought out and his beats were pretty sweet for the time. other collabs included the great track " Peep game" with 2pac and " A hoe b4 the homie" on King Tee's Trifflin album.

This aint a classic album like "Straight outta compton" but this is a great addition to anyones cd collection and chances are...you probably get it cheap somewhere too. be sure to check it out.

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So after the re-up i come with a little more info on threat. Ive just listened to this album again and it still amazes me how he didnt make a bigger name for himself? such a good dude with serious skills?

so anyways i have since found out that threat was a member of a group called " Black Menace " ive not checked out their stuff yet but am definitely gonna delve into it.

i found a link available for some of their stuff over on Deadly Grounds Website
I'm gonna get this album and see if i can track down the oither stuff so keep your eyes open for some stuff soon :)

So the year is like....1993 and everyone just getting over the shock of Dr. Dre's Chronic album just appearing from nowhere just before christmas in 92? and usualy around that time there is a lack of albums coming out in the start of a year that are any good but..........1993 was a good year for hip hop!!!

And then i saw the video for Common Sense's Take it easy track on Yo mtv! and from then on i was hooked.

Next time i went diggin for records i grabbed his first album can i borrow a dollar

I loved this album so much....sorry used past tense then...i STILL love this fuckin album!

I was hooked on common's flow straight away and while a lot of my friends shunned this at the time i banged this album to death. I made it a mission to collect every common track i could from the moment i heard it. So i got the singles as soon as they left the man stacking the shelves hand!!!

Now ive looked and looked for the first single "take it E Z" but no matter what i read i dont believe this exsists and it has kinda become my holy grail of records! i would pay top top dollar for this single!!!

But as you can see i grabbed everything else that came out and this is still pride of place in my collection. Common is still one of my favourite rappers and i am glad i can say i heard his shit before he blew up and become the M.C he is now!

A lot of people are probably hearing his stuff for the first time in the last 2 years or so thanks to collabs with people like Kanye but those that know? know this is one M.C that has been on top of his game since.......well since he first hit the shelves!

Some stand out tracks from the time he was still know as Common Sense are definately "Soul by the pound (thump mix)" ........" I used to love H.E.R." and the amazing "In my own world (check the method)" also another great track which never featured on any of the albums was "Can i bust" which was released on the Breaker 1/9 single. This track is superb and not many have heard it??? check em out.

So its fairly safe to say i shall be blogging sometime about common when he lost his sense from his name but that will come soon.....enjoy

Friday, November 10, 2006

ok so its only fair i start up with the whole reason this blog is being made....DE LA SOULlike them or not? they have to be one of the most original groups of all time... and that means all types of music.before my school trip i had heard the obvious "THE MAGIC NUMBER" played around on radio and stuff. But it didnt come to me properly until i heard the whole album about 4 times in a row on the minibus to wales. sounds repetitive but i assure you if you take time out to listen to this album it will probably/hopefully have the same effect on you?

it was the first time i heard an album that kinda had a story to it. and the more you listened along the more you heard and laughed at some of the outrageous things being said in the story.DE LA have always to this day made light hearted music that sounds easy to the ear but underneath, sometimes anyways, tells a darker story to life in the streets and if broken down properly is probably as hardcore as other rappers like "PUBLIC ENEMY" + "N.W.A. "

Their tales are just as gritty but DE LA always managed to have that easy listening sound to them.